Building Your Own Stage: Simi D Trini On Comedy, Courage, And Community

Transcript

Morning Banter And Carnival Preferences

Corie 0:01

Welcome to the Cory Shepherd Podcast. My name is Cory Shepherd. Welcome back to everybody who's been listening. Welcome to all the new listeners. Today we have with us Simi D Trini. How are you, ma'am?

SPEAKER_04 0:12

I am great. You good? Yes, sir. Nice to have you here. Nice to be here after all these years of diving in your inbox saying when is going to be my penis.

Corie 0:25

I was going to say that I've been chasing after Simi D Trini for more than a year. Now he's also.

SPEAKER_04 0:30

See, and this is where it is, Lil Manda's lie. Manda's lie. I given all of the truths. I am here to bring truth.

Corie 0:39

This is the power of the edits. We'll fix this. Wow. How things going? Where carnival season going?

SPEAKER_04 0:44

Quiet, as always. Carnival is usually a quiet period for me. I'm not normally out. I'm not a fetter. Um, not a party person, never have been, never will be. And I think uh most people have kind of caught up with that. So my friends would over the years call and hey, you're what goes so and so fet, uh, with excitement and enthusiasm in their voice. And I would ask them questions like, sure. Uh, so tell me a little bit more about this vet. Is it does it have seating? Is it air conditioned? Do we have parking close to the venue? And once you see you answer wrong. Is it after 9 p.m.? Yeah, well, all right. Well, isn't it snowy, right? You know, um I'll catch you all on the next one. Yeah, next, next one for sure.

Corie 1:40

It's plenty effort. It's plenty effort. Like I said in David this year, say, Well, fet's supposed to start when I don't wake up. Well, nine, ten o'clock is a good time for me to go a fet. And by one o'clock, I home, I could do that, but I've entered my brunch era of fetting.

SPEAKER_04 1:53

You see, um, I am a bruncher, I am not a night in the night pet fet, and I I'm not in that mind space where I enjoy getting wet. In and I'm not not that kind of wet, huh? Oh, okay. I'm just checking. I enjoy that kind of wet, but the the the getting the soaker type of wet where it's like uh mud and paint and at two o'clock and three o'clock in the morning.

Corie 2:20

In for that. Ah ever since, ever since? Back in the days of a COVID.

SPEAKER_04 2:24

After COVID, because then I'd be like, yeah, yeah, this is just you know the gyms can't come out of the mind. Yeah, this is this is too much.

Corie 2:32

So back in the day, I was outside, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:34

I was out, and I still do. I think if nothing else, I would do juvet. Yeah, so that's my one thing.

Corie 2:39

Yeah, gotcha, gotcha.

SPEAKER_04 2:40

I love that I can, if I want to exit at any point in time, is that kind of party where hey, look a street that I could leave.

Corie 2:52

You intend to stay for this whole interview, you didn't say that.

SPEAKER_04 2:54

I do, I will be here from start to finish.

Corie 2:56

Okay, beautiful. At least we have it.

SPEAKER_04 2:58

It's in the morning, so yeah, it's true, it's true, it's really why are we in the morning?

Corie 3:02

No, I guess they're late night.

SPEAKER_04 3:04

If you like Simi, come to our podcast. It's 10 o'clock in the night. Ah, I'll catch you on the next one. Next time, next time.

Corie 3:11

I don't tell people about the hearts. It's close to Valentine's Day. Maybe it's just coincidence, you know. I ain't read you and hearts and things.

Social Media Strategy And Daily Posting

SPEAKER_04 3:18

It is uh love is lovely. We are going into that time of year where all the Scorpios are about to make their entrance into a womb. Yeah, I can see that going in that shouldn't but but it's the time in that's the time in that scorpio baby time in.

Corie 3:40

So it wasn't Carnival, baby, all this time.

SPEAKER_04 3:42

Carnival and Valentine's, yeah.

Corie 3:45

I love it. You following this thing recently where tried giving out rose to people, anything?

SPEAKER_04 3:50

Yes, I did a bit, I did a video about it just up to yesterday. I was sitting down dancing with my my rose in in the in my backyard. All my neighbors must have been looking out, like, what is she doing? At this point, they're just fell up on her.

Corie 4:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, TikTok bubbling.

SPEAKER_04 4:07

Yeah, it is just you see me in the backyard dancing, whether it's politics, whether it's whatever going on, I in my backyard dancing. Is it having a time?

Corie 4:15

How frequently your goal is to post every day, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 4:18

I try to post every day and uh I try to vary the posts because I'm a writer more predominantly, I will write posts. So sometimes I would send send out this long biblical length post. Because my I have a lot of fans who are readers. Yeah, oh god, they can read literacy, yay. Um, I remember from the posts.

Corie 4:40

Yeah, literacies. Reading, I can't read them, but I'll tell you it's faster than video because I could skim through essay and get a point versus a video. You had to kind of stay stay with it to the end.

SPEAKER_04 4:51

Or unless, of course, you do like me where the video is very short and just me dancing, and just with a message at the end, like dance, dance, dance, tut, jiggle, jiggle in the face. There you go. Please buy tickets for my show. And that that wins much faster than uh a thesis. Yeah, of course, of course. On the culture and why we should support the arts in Trinidad and Tobago, followed by buy tickets for this show.

Corie 5:18

But it's interesting because it's interesting to hear you say that you deliberately vary the post because you kind of never know. TikTok, especially, like one minute you're talking about the government and the issue with this next thing is you and your relationship or whatever it is. You deliberate about how you weave through that.

SPEAKER_04 5:31

Yeah, I I treat my social media like an arm of what is really going on in my world. And I feel like a lot of people misunderstand how valuable social media is as a tool. It is media, you know. And I come from a media background. I was a journalist for seven, eight years, and an award-winning journalist at that with serious topics, serious conversations. Right. And uh having that background, I understand that social media is media, but the social aspect is amplified. So, with that now, if I choose to talk about something, whoever's interested in that topic will join the conversation. And there are conversations that I will have that will reach some people, and there are conversations I have that uh some people would just hear the first few lines and be like, not really for me. But then I might come back the next day with a back and all story. And then back in. Yeah, but then you actually die, eh, that's where it is, do it fix, and that's you come back in again. So you hit them from different angles, and that way it allows for a diverse audience. Yeah, yeah. And I love having a diverse audience because it means that when I am doing material, comedic material, it allows me to get a good feedback from different areas of society and how they feel on our subject.

Corie 6:53

Oh, so what is relatable?

SPEAKER_04 6:57

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's a lot of a lot of background research because we really don't have um open mic opportunities here in Trinidad as much as the foreigner foreign comedians would have. Right. So sometimes my testing for material for stage is through social media. What is relatable, what works, what doesn't work, I'll test it there.

Using Online Feedback To Craft Material

Corie 7:17

Yeah, we're getting the reactions when you talk about posting every day. So if I samson comes to mind, something I hear everybody say that he's post every day. Yeah. And I see you as a Stacy there now. I'd have to say my wife's name is Stacy to us, so I've tried here carefully. How that go in? How that comes about our collaboration with you all?

SPEAKER_04 7:32

Well, similar to here today, I had reached out to Samson. Now, we did a stand-up comedy show several years ago, and um I've kept in touch with him. Uh, love seeing his growth and his progress. And I reached out to him and I told him, Hey, you know, if ever you want to collaborate on something, I would love to be part of it. Now, I had originally pitched to him the idea where I wanted of all of the characters, if I had to interact with one, I would have wanted to interact with the he has a character where um the the it's like a vagrant and they're skilly bang. Crazy.

SPEAKER_05 8:09

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:10

I wanted that character to work with. And he was like, No, I have something in mind for you. And I was like, okay, cool. Six months, seven months, eight months later, I see a phone call, um, check in, and he's like, All right, already, this is what what the idea is. And uh we met and we discussed it, we discussed the character. He had a different idea for what he wanted for the character, and I said, Hey, you know, Stacey for me has to be someone who is, yeah, she might say something that hitting, but she's doing it sweetly. So I wanted the character still be likable, not somebody who just comes in and insulting because majority of my demographic is women, and I really don't like the concept of a woman putting another woman down just so just so. So if I have to put you down, let me do it in a smart way where people will find I putting you down. But technically, what I am saying, like, oh, Barty loves my soulfish. Yeah, nobody, nobody in really picking up that this is a job, right? Right, except for the fact that it is, you know, it's not something that's direct telling me. I didn't wait to do things. We like tongue-in-cheek and sarcasm, and just a little underhand joke, just take a little, a little peekong, yeah, and uh that's that's how that character came about. But it's been phenomenal the response, and it opened my eyes to just how how much bigger a platform his platform is than my my little chunky, small chuck in the corner.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

There we go.

SPEAKER_04 9:44

You know, but it is it's different because like for me, I would post things, and yes, there are people who would recognize me, and I would go about my day and oh yeah, Simi. But no, I don't even guess him me no more. I I I went to Las Cuevas this weekend, right? And one of the touts who's trying to sell chairs and stuff, um, Miss Lady, Miss Lady, Miss Lady, you need any hey, but I and use um Stacy from Samson.

Corie 10:12

Look at life, eh? You turn Stacy from Samson alive.

Collaborations, Creating “Stacy,” And Audience Reach

SPEAKER_04 10:17

I Stacy from Samson Ting. I Stacy from Samson Ting. That is that's where it became. Yeah. Seven, eight years of building a brand as Sammy Detrini, which is by the way, not my government name, as some people may feel it is, to now be Stacy from Samson Ting.

Corie 10:37

He had to love it, yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, he does a lot of work to build his wooden table, too. Definitely. But it's something I always observed about you. Yeah, it seemed, at least from my viewpoint as a fan, to be deliberate about building your own table. Yeah. And doing your own shows is one of those.

SPEAKER_04 10:52

Oh, yeah. And it is it's an important thing for me to be able to do my own thing because I've found in the past, and this is in no means uh put down to anybody, but I've found in the past that you might be at someone's table for a long period of time helping them to build, and then all of a sudden, one day, you are no longer welcome at this table, and it leaves you with nothing. And uh, for me, I have a background that is rooted in a moment of abject poverty where my children's survival depends on me. I'm a single parent. So having my own table has allowed me to feel more secure, to have that stability that no, this is mine, this is what I am doing, I am having this show, I'm doing this, and I will stand the responsibility for it. I run the risk. It's gambling.

Corie 11:49

It is gambling, it's business, entrepreneurship is easy.

SPEAKER_04 11:52

No, it definitely isn't. But I know that when it's built to where I want it to be, it would now allow for my sons who are now becoming young men themselves. How old are your sons? 14 and 16, one is turning 15, so I'll be 15 and 16. Oh my god, but I say big, like one is six foot two, and it's a bit taller.

Corie 12:12

I just want to put this out there, it's to be taller than you think.

SPEAKER_04 12:15

Yeah, yeah. I'm I'm almost six feet tall, and my sons are like six foot two and six foot three. So we we don't look, we don't look like a proper unit in that car that I'm currently driving. So I'm I'm currently working towards buying a van or something where all of us could actually stretch our legs out instead of all of us. Like I always be driving with my knees in my breasts, and it's an uncomfortable experience. And I'm wanting to drop these boys to school. Really is going trips, yeah. As soon as they they come out of the car, it's just clacks.

Corie 12:46

Going mad, okay.

SPEAKER_04 12:47

Now I could extend my foot to mash this pedal instead of having like up there, up in the truth, yeah.

Corie 12:56

But the show's doing well because I saw your show last year. I forget when we first spoke, it could have been summer heading towards the middle of the year last year, but you had a show going on at Queen's Hall. How do I?

SPEAKER_04 13:04

Yeah, it was good. I have been very, very fortunate. Uh, this is my fourth show that I'm going into at Queen's Hall, but my sixth overall big show. So I've done three at Queen's Hall, one at Sappa, one at Napri Mabow, and I'm learning the bigger spaces and what works and what doesn't work for me so that I can produce and execute a show that feels like me.

Corie 13:28

Like a brand.

Building Your Own Table And Betting On Yourself

SPEAKER_04 13:29

It's my brand, it's my show. And I'm trying to get to that place where when I put out a show and people hear Simmy Detrini having a show, they automatically know it's a good quality show. That's what I think I try to set aside from um some of the others. It's it's a production quality and a value. So, as some of my friends have told me, when you come to my shows, yes, it's stand-up comedy, but it also feels like there are elements of theater in the mix so that it feels more cohesive, like it's it flows from start to finish. And that goes, that comes from a lot of me being involved in every aspect of my show. So I always tell people, they don't know this, but now they're gonna know. I am so heavily involved in my shows that um I pick, it's curated the music that you listen to when you're sitting down in the audience before the show. Every song. I am proudly a clipboard-wielding micromanager with an A-type personality. I am an I am the most lovable person until I am in a managerial role when it comes to my shows and my money jumping out. Then, no, because it's your money. Of course. You know, you just move different when it's other people's money. Be like, oh, you want something? All right, well, I'll do it when I'll do it. And it goes get done. Why are you on my back? When it's your money, it is just be like, hey, hey, hey. Oh, so you're not gonna do my thing on time, I'll do it myself. And I've actually done that where I felt like I had people on board who didn't do things on the timeline, and I had to learn entirely new skill sets just so that I was like, oh, okay, you're in doing it, no problem. I will.

Corie 15:11

Yeah, it's one of those things about entrepreneurship that people don't, and that's why I enjoy talking to people like you who sell one of something. It's real hard to have this discussion with somebody who never sees the bank of cong do so to put out something and then wait. Yeah, because our culture is also one way, and that's why I don't do events. The ulcers, because I can't take Trin Megonian, who you just put out his show three months before, and you do all the right things and you advertise. I come from Papers Days like you, you know. And then the week off is when tickets start to sell.

Producing High-Quality Shows And Total Curation

SPEAKER_04 15:42

I am currently going through that right now because it's carnival and my show is at the end, it's two weeks after Carnival, February 28th. And uh the show is announced since December, it's Christmas, and it's not that I I don't think that people aren't going to come, but I do know that they're last minute. And here's the thing I've learned you can't wait until the last minute to advertise this. Yeah, you gotta push. You have to keep it in the back of people's minds until it's closer to that time. They will decide last minute, yes, but they will not decide last minute if they didn't know about it in the back of their mind. Yeah, so from December to now, there's there's somebody somewhere in Trinidad who is telling herself, well, I go save her$50 this month and next month I go and I go get my ticket on on that month, and I can pay on the 25th. So I go I'm gonna get my ticket on the 25th. And the show is on the 28th, right? So I shit in bricks until the 28th, until I see. Bills coming. Bills, bills, bills. All around is bills. Everybody calling me and ringing on my phone saying, hey, about our money. And I like, great, no problem. Here's the money. And I'm sweating because I do not know what I'm gonna walk into. But I I walk with faith. I walk with faith, and uh I always say faith bigger than a mustard seed because you can't not have that faith. If you're if you go into this kind of business and you know that this is the stress level, as you sell say ulcer, there's some people just not they can't make with it. But for me, I do it because one, I see it as a means to an end, it helps a lot with my family's finances, but also it helps a lot with community outreach as well. So the money that I make isn't just my money alone and I take care of myself and my kids, but also I do a lot of outreach things to help other people during the course of the year, and the big shows help with that. Yeah, the small shows could never, but the big shows allow me to be um in a position where I could assist here and there and do little things, and it is something that I myself look forward to because it's almost like my way of um giving back to people who are where I once was. I always say I am where I am right now, which is not where I want to be, but it is very far from where I used to be, and where I came from was literally abject poverty. Where I was when I was when I was first Semidi Trini. I I had to show people where I was living recently for a documentary they were doing, and I drove them into the back of Grandcouver, which is where I was. Cocoa estate, bush, all my neighbors, bush, bush, bush, and bush. Uh one bedroom, old cocoa house, roof holes in the roof leaking, no portable water, meaning no pipe borne water. And I used to have to go, I knew every standpipe in the area to go on an afternoon and fill up bottles with my son. We used to go and bathe by my friends, sometimes wash clothes by my friends, and then go home in the evening using. I know it took exactly 10 liters of water to fill a toilet, to flush the toilet. I had a science calculated.

SPEAKER_05 19:14

Oh, my God.

SPEAKER_04 19:14

And in our bathroom, they would have sometimes, because we in Cocoa Estate, pink toe tarantulas coming in, snake around over my well, slithered over my feet at times.

Corie 19:26

That must be fun.

SPEAKER_04 19:27

I yeah, I've I've encountered everything bats, mice, everything that you could encounter living in the bush. It was not a pleasant experience. And I was there with my sons, just the two of us, and just the two of them, and and we are in this uncomfortable environment. And then COVID hit, couldn't get work. Even worse, a situation where I was dependent on the generosity of strangers to pull me through that period, and uh I always look back at that time and remember it. So it keeps me humble, I think. It keeps me grounded. I'm not built from oh, I have a silver spoon, or I have as a friend of mine told me, the reason why some people don't take too kindly to me is because I look 1% adjacent because of how my complexion is and how my hair is. I look like I come from money, and yet when I show you where I come from, no, I I come from very, very humble, poor beginnings, and to go from having nothing, when I say nothing, I mean negative$15 in my bank account to it's still negative, but that is not the point. The point is I have built a following, and I have built something where my family is is provided for. We have portable water. Congrats, very you don't know comfort until you can just do this, and the water is just fall out from this.

Corie 21:07

Or you don't know this comfort until you can't, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to get to the origins and especially the part with you taking the time to help people, something I always notice. But talking about your show and that curating the experience, if you're saying, because when we walk into a show, I think it's nice ambient music. No, why is that so important to you to keep curate from that place?

Entrepreneurship Stress, Faith, And Giving Back

SPEAKER_04 21:27

I'm setting a mood, and each show has a theme and a mood. So and that mood is attached to my mood because I want you to be in a particular mind frame. So I've had gospel music, gospel singers on my show. I've had uh uh well now recently deceased rest in peace, Kay Allen came to do a song that I had reached out to her about with uh stand up, take my people with me together, we'll go. But the fact is I curate the experience because to me comedy is yeah I want people to laugh yes but I want people to think I want people to feel something you're coming into my quarters heavy with your heavy spirit from whatever going on in the world outside it's true people is coming with a heavy spirit comedy should be heavy and true trying to lighten yourself up but as it I am trying to lighten you not just uh with the comedy but also spiritually comedy is energy that's something that I learned and I realized that when a comedian goes on stage we meet people who are going through a range of emotions you meet the people who are grieving because they just lost someone um maybe they had a death in their family or maybe they had a breakup but they're grieving you meet the people who are in a bad place at work because their bosses are kind of allowed to curse yeah their bosses are a full cunt. Now you might have cut they're working with real they're they're working with a number one top tier premium cunt and they had to deal with that and come home every evening and deal with a wife or husband who's top tier cunt too so their life just sour in different spaces and they're coming out to just get relief. They're not coming to that listen it's a real thing because when I talk to people after the shows and when I interact I get to hear some of what is going on people's lives like that I'm from who have children who misbehaving and giving problems in school to who have siblings that dealing with drug addiction issues to who have a man who have alcohol problems. People come in with problems they come into you to alleviate that love yeah come make me laugh because my life is shit and I'm like no hold on there my life is shittier let me show you how you know let's let's let's let's do this let's do this this this struggle olympics for a bit here and by time you finish yeah you feel better about your life at the end of this but it's it's a curated experience from uh spiritual side of things too so that you are feeling you leave feeling lifted gotcha not just from the laughter but from the music that you hear it's positivity and one of the things that I think sets me aside from some of the other comedians is I do think of things as well in terms of you know Trinidadians we do love that pecong we love that acid we have an acidity to us a little a little I will call it a little nastiness too people like to put other people down all of us all of us all of us but I am not designed where if I see somebody fall down I will laugh at them I'm not designed where if I see somebody in the audience who's poorly dressed or they I would not pick on anyone so my crowd knows when you come to my shows you're safe. It is a safe space you're not gonna have comedians picking on you or putting you down this is where we are coming here to laugh and be lifted. This is where we we are going to be up on a level after and it's not you rich and I poor and you come from this background no we are all one under one roof and we are here for a purpose.

Corie 25:35

Yeah it's something that I see on in the social spaces especially your loyal fans good loyal and they know your stories they they they they almost with you with every joke.

From Abject Poverty To Purpose

SPEAKER_04 25:44

Yeah in terms of how you create the show as well stand up is a big part of it the skits also involved or is just standard sometimes sometimes it depends on my mood and what I want to include or what I want to incorporate. I have done skits before so I have other comedians or other acts that I have on my show. And in the past I've had uh skits done by Cecilia Salazan, Penelope Spencer I've had uh moments where we would have uh comedic performance that is musical in nature so it really just depends on what I feel to do. And I change there's no two shows are the same ever. So when somebody comes they come in for from brand new from scratch all of the jokes all of the stories and all of the comedians are literally handpicked and handpicked by you handpicked by him yeah because we have a lot you know and majority is men 99.9% of the comedians are male but there are some of them their stories I identify with more than others and I feel like their stories are stories that my kind of audience would relate to and similar to what I am going through their story may be able to have the audience sit and say hey I I've been through that so that's relatable and I could identify with this person. So you will always find someone even if you don't like this comedian or that comedian you will always find because human subjective and what might make one person laugh might offend the other right yeah but I try to have a nice variety and a blend so that it's hard to come to one of my shows and not find somebody something some element that lifted you yeah you make me think about this you know because I stay because I went to a Chappelle show once in Florida.

Corie 27:35

Well look at you flexible I mean David and them taking good care of him and you know what was unique the he had Donald Rowling's open who's your partner and it was real high energy. And then he had a DJ play for what I find was a real long time. Because you know you're saying you're curating it I wonder if it was deliberate because probably deliberate when you come on the stage it was real heavy it was intense so I I could see where I myself get taken on a journey not not really knowing what it was. But one of the things that people talk about with comedians a lot is the pain that most comedians go through. People tell me that comedians are very observant number one they take in a lot I could see that in your posts and just there's almost nothing I never see you talk on or talk about. Yeah. But from the standpoint of pain I I was introduced to you with some of those posts you're talking about during COVID. And I saw some of the pain in the things you were typing during COVID.

SPEAKER_04 28:25

Yeah because the thing is if you do laugh you go cry and uh it's laugh and cry live in the same house sometimes you need the relief and uh for me art is the relief. Now how you choose to express your art is different for different people. Comedy is just one arm of my expression uh but I was a writer and I am still very much so a writer so more often than not whenever I am hurting about stuff I process it through writing. And yes I could write and keep my stuff to myself and mind my business in my corner writing a diary somewhere chuck it in. But I share because I've I never used to do it before and I know that there's some people who are mixed they have mixed feelings about me being that open and that transparent in social media because we have a culture where if you're going through something if it's if you're going through abuse for example or if you're going through a particularly hard time financially you hide it. We hide it because you don't want people judging you and I threw that to the wind like if I broke a hand of money today and tomorrow I got social media I'll be like hey Oliver we're going all right negative$2 in my bank account all of four we we we we had a we had to live differently from there and I deal with my pain publicly and uh I do it in a way where people are allowed to identify with it as well because you'd be shocked to know I'm not alone.

Corie 29:58

I'm never alone basic mean so when you say things like that or you put it out there do you get the mean stuff?

SPEAKER_04 30:04

Of course of course there are people who they will take it depending on their background and their filters because we all have different lenses they might view it as a girl begging again and that's really what come down to but and I might see it I might see something that I share and it's somebody shares it over and it's something that they've attached negative commentary to but the way that I see it them they are the minority now. They are the minority the majority of the people my vibe has attracted my tribe okay so if I post something and it's hurtful I might see more support and I wouldn't even just say support you would see people who might come out and say hey you know this is also something I'm experiencing at this time or I'm also going through this kind of challenge and I'm I'm really happy to hear you share your view on it because I don't want it to sound like I'll just be posting doom and gloom.

Corie 31:11

No it's not the case at all. It's not the case at all.

Setting The Mood: Comedy As Spiritual Energy

SPEAKER_04 31:13

It's my way of processing. Now I'm ADHD autistic so it's it's a processing disorder situation where me writing helps me process better. It helps me emotionally regulate myself better. So I might be going through something horrific but when I finish writing it and I've released it I go back over and I read it and I'm like oh you've solved the problem here you've solved your own problem and in me solving my own problem through my own thought process someone who's reading it is also looking at it and saying oh you know this also impacted me. So I'll give an example because it it's something that was one of those turning points that made me aware of it. I had shared a post about imposter syndrome and how I feel when I do these things and I feel like well who she feels she is you know she's Marshell Montano she can't go on show. Where you come from yeah is that nobody from nowhere nobody ain't gonna like you and still against that backdrop I am choosing to put myself out there to still do an event to still be part of an entertainment landscape where the aesthetic especially for women is that you should be half naked have exp have as much exposure as possible for people to even give you a foot in the door and here I am fully clothed talking I am everything that a lot of men do not want to hear at this time because I am a plus size single mother and yet I'm still here. I'm taking up space and I'm taking up space unapologetically and I don't give a shit I'm doing it um and I'm putting it in God's hands that people are going to show up for my shows or people will show up for me. And just sharing like that I remember there was one woman in particular who said you know I have been hesitating to do something that I've wanted to do for a very long time and just reading your post motivated me to send an application. She was applying for something that was a happening in Dubai and she got through yeah and she went and she did her training and she came back and she thanked me and and it was one of those moments where I realized that more on more than one occasion this is happening. I'm sure you see it all the time yeah now now I see it more often like oh no you know Simi I I was I I didn't have the qualifications but I saw that post because I do resumes and cover letters for people I saw that post that you did and I decided to apply for this job and I got the job I got the job and I'm so happy thank you so much for just sharing that post. So it's something that I recognize that through my own lived experiences good or bad I could be helping someone.

Corie 33:58

Yeah it's something that I this very very new to me because you all are more accustomed to this public space than me. So half the time I sit down here talking to somebody I fight them for my life I'm nervous I try and figure out that I just want to do a good job you know and maybe not understanding that somebody could see hope or or promise in in in whatever journey I take it is overwhelming sometimes. And it's one of the reasons I was looking forward to talking to you for a long time because you share with honesty that I feel we lack in in Trinidad and Tobago. Yeah we have you see where you said it that's one of my biggest issues we hide and talk a lot we shoo show a lot. Yeah we should we sweep a lot of things under the topic and maybe that's a good thing because we show up and we present ourselves as good and and and we do the job which I guess is a real plus well sometimes we had to talk about these things so that we could try and solve them.

Safe Rooms, No Peckong, And Inclusive Lineups

SPEAKER_04 34:45

Well I agree and I think one of the things that I'm very very passionate about and I I speak about all the time particularly when it comes to domestic violence and domestic violence survivors that's one of those areas where I'm I post and it makes people uncomfortable and I see the discomfort and I don't care. I see how emotional you get talking about I'm a survivor I I would have my very first relationship ever ever ever I was I never dated I was not one of those teenagers that was out and bad I didn't throw into a convent I was one of them convent girls that was my mother used to pick me up after school so I didn't know about man and uh I got into a relationship when I was 19 years old and how that relationship ended was with him um holding the back of my hair at a ponytail and banging my head into burglar proofing in my own home which broke my front tooth under the gum line ripped from the nose come down was stitched up and all hair was stitched in had a black eye and this was over him being jealous because he saw me talking to some men in front of the building where I was working and it it stayed with me because if I didn't call out to my neighbours and my neighbor didn't come up the stairs and tell him to let me go and me coming out of my house in a jersey just a jersey and a panty and shaken visibly bleeding broken toot everything and being ushered to the hospital and having to go through that process where when I'm dealing with the police the police is telling me what it is you could have tell him for him to why tell him for him to do me that police. Yeah police I I went through a process that allowed me to understand how these things could derail and how things could make I had to have friends come and stay in my gallery for almost three months so that he wouldn't show up. He wouldn't show up to show up again just to prevent that relationship from settling back. And um I talk about domestic violence and I know it makes people uncomfortable as I said I don't care because I feel like a lot of women hide when they're being assaulted behind closed doors or when they're experiencing violence and we only hear about it when they're dead when they make the front page of the newspaper but in actuality it's been leading to there they've been dealing with a man who's being abusive to them for an extended period of time. So um I am of the mindset that being open about it even if it is an uncomfortable conversation to have we have a problem here in Trinidad and Tobago and the only way we can even get close to solving it is by being open about shed light. Yeah shed light on it I agree 100% a bigger part of this too though is something that I had discovered along this journey of me sharing about domestic violence and speaking up openly about it. Our men are very unpleasant when it comes to even having the conversation with their brethren and sometimes it's because they see it as a their problem not as a me problem. So you as a man you might beat your wife so you might be like all right well that is not really my problem but you might have a brethren in your circle who you might be aware of who might be abusive he mightn't be a lasher or hitter but you know he might be he might be prone he might be prone to abusive behavior and your discomfort in even having a conversation with him because men talk differently to each other. You might go and lime brethren will have a whole a whole lime where none of that will be a conversation we don't discuss nah women we talk but don't have those conversations where a man could say hey bro I notice you're having some little anger issues and take and you ever went to therapy that's not bro conversation while it be decent game I'm playing FIFA you're like hey boy you're really doing good in this we can say it like that but but I get your point is is how it is but that's what I mean when I say shed light and something I appreciate that you do it even though you could see people's discomfort or men's discomfort men's discomfort mostly do you see any comments on this or absence absent comments what's because you'll see women comment no men in comments like crickets from the men okay I'm not surprised but uh brethren of mine actually shed light on this for me because we were talking about rape and uh he was saying well excuse me he made a statement about women and why they should dress more appropriately because it was how they dress in is inviting rape so so so so and I said are you sure that's the direction you want to take because I'm willing to bet if you go home and ask your mom your grandmother your sisters your cousins ask them about their experiences you might be surprised to find out somebody in your own family has been hiding some sort of sexual abuse and he's like nah there that in my family we'd have and about a month later I bounced up his sister and she told me she had a conversation with him because he came home that same evening and he brought it up and he was like you know this is what Sibio is saying and she ain't what she's talking about and she said I girl I don't know how to thank you for having that conversation with him because when I told him when she was at college in the States she was assaulted and she had been hiding it from their whole family came back to Trinidad didn't complete her degree but could not tell them why she did not complete her degree and it opened a door for her to say this is what happened. This is why I didn't even finish the degree this is why I came back home and from that I noticed that the nature of some of his posts on social media started to change.

Pain, Writing, And Radical Openness Online

Corie 40:43

Yes just the exposure we saw afraid of light what you're describing is almost exactly what happened to me because I mean I was only with one woman for my whole life right but nine of the 10 women I was with they you hear these stories about and I I am shocked to be honest with you as a man or a young man teenager the first time you hear it you really think it's a one off like my uncle do this on the final just going home at the end you think it's a one-off yeah but when you hear it more and more I think it's a very you ask and when you ask the average Tranbegonian woman when was your first time that you were exposed to something that was sexual in nature that made you feel uncomfortable you'd find that when you hear the age you'd start to say what just this simple question I saw going around on Twitter. I mean I saw you contribute to that take your drinking and we go edit it out we go keep it on me while you're drinking it's important to be not sober here but when you when when I saw the the thing I'm going around on Twitter or going around on socials just and I saw you contributing to it well just ask women how how safe they feel walking around in the night I I I am still sometimes I just be like I ask my mother or I ask my wife or ask people who I know like you go to the beach by yourself any night never never I live in fear of that possibility that I could be assaulted in those spaces so I wouldn't go to the beach in the night I wouldn't even go to the beach without brethren because honestly you never know nowadays you might you might be there with your brethren no somebody come up yeah somebody come up you might you might be with a very safe brethren you're on the beach and you totally sit down there picnic at nine o'clock in the night and then you hear whoa family so many man and you're just there like what what is happening here but very very very very real yeah it's a real thing yes it's appreciate that the fact that you you talk about it and you're not shy about putting your own experience about it to start the conversation and it's important I feel that more people started doing it of course it's a it's going to be uncomfortable at first but if we want change to happen we need to be more comfortable to be a little uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_04 42:57

Yeah so let me go to the origins of this one percent upbringing you had where were we born where grew up I from Coover yeah is that from Cova originally from Coover uh I I was uh raised in Coover I am an exchange RC primary school holy faith convent Coover school right across the road from each other yeah courage Catholic school upbringing and um my family's a South family but my mom raised us in Coover because she worked in Point Lisa in the industrial estate and she was a single mom herself um we never grew up knowing luxury and privilege we were uh comfortable but I would say we were comfortable because my mom never made us aware of the discomforts to the extent that you know we we struggle and we we we were but mom alone mom alone she was a secretary I see yeah so she Was a phenomenal person, and uh she had her challenges as well, obviously being a single parent, but I grew up in that environment where I feel like I was sheltered, yes, but it was rural kind of living, community living, and so we were. I would say village, you know, they say it takes a village to raise a child. I would say I am a I'm a village child. I am a village, I continue to be a village child. It takes a village, and my village continues to move with me. You know, shout out to Balmain Gardens Coover people because they know, they know I can meet people from that little area in Coover, and I we all grew up together. And I still see some of them as family, extended family.

Corie 44:48

So we see yes to me didn't he, but they know yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:51

What boy Ria Simon Ogis in primary school? There are children that went to school with me that would go home and tell their parents stories about real ogies and what real ogies do. Rhea Ogis. Oh my god. There are some teachers that I'm sure went to therapy and used the EAP back in them days because and they would just go to their therapist and be like, Rhea Ogis.

Corie 45:23

Problems you gain the people trouble back in the day.

SPEAKER_04 45:26

Yeah, in school days, I was a I was uh I was a challenge because back then they didn't know what ADHD was. So attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder still exists in the space, I would say to some people that I white people think that's the thing.

Corie 45:42

She used to say just hyper.

SPEAKER_03 45:43

Yeah, she just hadn't. She didn't need she needs licks and Jesus. That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_04 45:48

The combination will have a failure. We'll solve everything here. And it was it was bad because for a girl, ADHD presents differently for a lot of girls, and that they are more distracted. But very rare you would have found hyperactive girls. Now, listen, my chuff now. When I was a child, I wasn't chuffed. I was a hyperactive girl. I used to run away from school. I used to run up, uh, run away, climb trees.

Corie 46:16

So just gone, like I gone.

Domestic Violence Realities And Speaking Up

SPEAKER_04 46:17

As a teacher turned her back. That is a day for me. School done. That is I out the door, I in the streets. Uh, you laughing is real thing. At the time, one of my mother friends see me walking past the sugarcane estates there. I in the bush and uni full uniform, he lamb the clock in the day. Real, where are you doing there? I went home. I fell up, I tired. Only put me in this environment. Yeah, yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She draught me. I'm throwing me in the back of her car and take me back in that prison. I mean, the school. Put me back out there. But I was a real headache. I never used to stop. So even for the national anthem, I used to get in trouble every morning. Yes, it's still the national anthem. All right, everybody stand that attention for the national anthem. I I dug in, I robot. You know, my macarina and everything going on. They were like, something wrong with her. What is wrong? They know, they didn't know.

Corie 47:24

People now might think that as you know, but back then, nobody in studying.

SPEAKER_04 47:27

Yeah, back then, all they were just like, no, licks, relics, I get relics. Uh, until I met there was a very petite Catholic nun. I'll never forget her. From her name is Sister Mary Timothy. Boy, oh boy, that woman. At the time, when I was a child, I used to think she was my ups. She hated me, boy. She did not like to see me just existing being. She used to keep me busy. So they realized I wouldn't stay still for the national anthem. They taught me how to raise the flag. Oh, that was when she gave something to do with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You had you had a we how we going to church, the school, the whole school going to church. You want a balance in the people church? No, ma'am. Go up, go up and you read. You had your reader. You go and read.

Corie 48:08

She find a way to lever the energy.

SPEAKER_04 48:10

Now, here's how that worked. By if I'm going in church before, I would just be walking like a little lost person in the church. Now you put me on the altar to read. I'm in front of people. I'm in front of an audience. My first audiences was in church reading. And then from there, any calypso competition, she entered me in.

Corie 48:35

What's a singing?

SPEAKER_04 48:36

Singing.

Corie 48:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 48:37

And if the school, she created school choirs singing. I'll never forget. And as always tell people, this woman stuck a song in my head from even back then. There was an old calypso, and she was billing it on me. You know, I only know I realized she was billing it on me. But the song was my school days was her L After with me and my school teacher. Uh-huh. I had a lazy brain. I drive about 12 teachers in sin. Anytime I'm in the class, I drive them out of their mind. So rather than have to deal with me, they rather resign. Oi. I lazy to whine and dine. I lazy to change my mind. Sunshinin hot as fire. I lazy to prospire. I'm hungry like I want to dead. I lazy to bite my bread. I'm hungry and I'm sleepy like a whole ram sheep.

SPEAKER_01 49:29

Too lazy to go to sleep. Look, I see.

SPEAKER_04 49:32

And I get pan and pamphlet. And she's billing it, laughing, playing guitar. I found the correct song for this girl. And I just singing my little calypso. But because of her, I started being on stage very, very young.

Corie 49:49

Imagine that.

SPEAKER_04 49:50

And the very first time I ever performed at a bigger stage, I was seven years old and I performed at San Fernando Arts Festival at Napary Mobile in the storytelling competition where I play second.

Corie 50:04

Serious. Yes, we transformed since there.

SPEAKER_04 50:06

So from seven years old, I've been on stage comfortable. Uncomfortable comfortable because I don't have stage fright issues. No. Um, I think it's it may be an ADHD glitch. Like I'm more comfortable on stage than I'm in the audience. Because if I'm in the audience, I fidget in and I chuck in somebody, like pull somebody here and do some kind of piece of madness that have teachers irritating. Yeah, but if I'm up on it, if I'm on stage and I have something to do, and I I love being all eyes on me, all the attention is mine. Oh, great. I understand. I like this.

Corie 50:45

So from as early as that, you want to do that, you want to do something on stage? Because you say the reporting and so on.

SPEAKER_04 50:50

Well, ADHD is a weird one in that I like to do a lot of things.

Corie 50:55

David and May like to go too.

SPEAKER_04 50:57

Yeah, Jack, I am a jack of all trades.

Corie 51:00

So out of school, what you what what happened at then when you leave in Holy Faith?

SPEAKER_04 51:05

Sorry, so we are going to do Holy Faith. Holy Faith, when I was going into Form 5, Form 4, Form 5, there were a group of subjects that you had to do, and I chose the business subjects. And uh one of the subjects was accounting, but I was struggling with accounting. I hated accounts. And I told the teacher that I loved food and nutrition, home economics. Right. I love to cook. So I told her I wanted to do home economics, but they didn't have this subject available. And she went to the principal, um, again, Mrs. Judith Basi, one of the village. Mrs. Basi went to the principal at the time, told her, look, I'll give up my lunch hours and I'll work with her. And for two years, this woman gave up every lunch hour to work with me as an individual to do food and nutrition. So I did food and nutrition for CXE as the only student from my year to do it. Then I got a one.

SPEAKER_01 51:57

Nice.

SPEAKER_04 51:57

And from there, I was supposed to do go to TTHDI uh hotel school. I would have been in the same year as Sonny Bling actually to do culinary arts and uh Sonny Bling not just playing in autoc for real.

Corie 52:09

Nah, Sonny Sonny.

SPEAKER_04 52:11

Oh Sonny, are you sometimes I just wonder if Sonny even remembers that that would have been the first time that I actually met him was on that campus. Yeah, you're gonna know. But yeah, well, yeah, he will. Yeah. But I I would have been in uh the same year, around the same year as him. So and uh sorry, go ahead. Yeah, we went, signed up, filled out all the forms, paid everything, and my mom got a heart attack. And uh again, single parent, Hoover, Chagaramas. I could not see myself leaving her unattended. So I stayed with her through that process. And uh instead of doing the hotel school, I went and I did A-levels. So I did A-level literature, law, and sociology.

Early Life, ADHD, And Finding The Stage

Corie 52:58

Yeah, but you really like all kinds of things. I mean, none of this now added up at all. I just want you to know that. Oh, I could have been a lawyer. First he was on stage at seven, we went and studied business in secondary school. Why?

SPEAKER_04 53:10

What was what there's a disconnect because I didn't like sciences, and I have um the dyscalculia, which is like dyslexia, but for people with math. So I'm terrible with with numbers. I'm better now because of training and different techniques, but back then, uh math. So I didn't want to do the science subjects, and so but your stage life continued into Holy Fate. You was doing things like choir and oh yeah, Holy Fate was even more intense because Sister Mary was there too. Oh, she played, she crossed the road and number one. She crossed the road and come over, she was there. Oh, you're uh you think you're gonna leave me behind? I wrote SEA too. Come over. She didn't get to back then was that common and trance, huh? Yeah, it just yeah, I was, I think, one of the last peers of common and trance. Tell them all them age by the same.

Corie 53:56

We will we all get out, we're gonna piece it together.

SPEAKER_04 53:58

But um, Jenny.

Corie 54:00

So same things, calypso competition.

SPEAKER_04 54:01

And holy faith, I would have been in calypso competitions, uh, folk choir, regular choir, uh, any type of acting. Um, but I also used to be involved in a lot of clubs. So I love that. One of the things they probably don't talk about much with prestige schools in Trinidad is the fact that there are more offerings for children. So back then I was like president of the Scrabble Club and vice president of the chess club. So lunchtime, my lunchtimes were always busy and occupied. And after school, I would play netball, or I always had something to do. So it was a very um busy period of my life where I was always occupied. Still used to get in trouble. Still used to be I sure had real girls who went to Holy Fit Convent and used to go, man, mommy real geese, boy. Hey, she real sickness. Sister Mary, should I bring back the same song say again? No, I really was sickening though. You know why I was sick then? I will tell you why I was sick then because I was one of them chairs on a Friday evening when the last teacher came for the day and we finished our last period for the day, and they just forget to give homework to be. Hey, sir.

Corie 55:08

Nah, man, say it so you ain't getting no homework.

SPEAKER_04 55:13

We getting homework, and he would give the homework. Oh, yes, it's true. I should give all this um do so so so and I'd hear the whole class groan.

Corie 55:21

It's real geese, man.

SPEAKER_04 55:23

And it's real geese, and here was the worst part. Because my mother is a single person, she not had no time with me in schoolwork. I didn't do the homework that I asked for Monday. I showing up Chris, Chris, homework undone, nothing doing, you know. Man, you just set up everybody else. Everybody we can mash up. I good. I just dare living my own. No, there I know that a friend of mine told me a story about myself in secondary school where an English teacher we had an essay to write that I had given her to give us homework. So she tell us to write an essay about XYZ, and I didn't do it. So brisk, bright Monday, my girl has essays for everybody. Like, come up and read your essay. And I went up and read my essay that I did not write. And she, yeah, open empty, empty book, you know, blank page, and had the whole class. It was a real good essay, too. My teacher was just amazed. She knows you're not a good idea. No, she did not know. No, she was just like, that was that was well written, very creative, well done. And I just there beaming and thinking, and let me see the book. Well, um, what that happened was what happened was the essay, the essay I wrote it, but it I wrote it in my brain. It hadn't transferred onto the to the paper yet. But it's not essentially.

Corie 56:58

I see why you choose this song that you choose. Yeah, but so common parent graduates, and you decide well, business is is unique. And I can see the accounting thing because people people might know about business, it might be POB, econ, and accounts, but accounts is the one nice really with the the whole bunch of numbers.

SPEAKER_04 57:13

Yeah, but I didn't do the accounts, so I did my food and nutrition, right? And I did what French.

Corie 57:18

So just out of love of cooking, you decide to go on to CTHGI. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_04 57:22

Loved, loved cooking. Uh I still did things outside of it though, because I have a certificate in breads, cakes, and pastries. Right. So if I've a hard time set, I could like whip up some dread pastry and thing. I might, I might, it might still be in the cards, you never know. I have been toying with the idea since the Stacy thing came up of wearing lingerie and doing meals that I would cook for my future husband in the kitchen.

Corie 57:45

Um time at the hood so we could do.

SPEAKER_04 57:48

So I could just be there halfway up, making little scramble egg and steak until then I do it in the Nara, the Nara voice, you know. Oh well, I don't have a husband as yet, but when I do have a husband, he'll be well fed. These are the dishes that I will be preparing for him. And just be a tea fed because eventually, when I do get married, I'm gonna get her fast food. Oh man, salad, and he just buying into the dream. You're buying into the dream.

Corie 58:16

Don't we all it's well a dream?

SPEAKER_04 58:18

To be making steak and mashed potatoes from scratch. I planted the potatoes myself in the garden. Yeah, right, friend.

Corie 58:26

So you know you're talking to Stacey, Stacy here. Planting potatoes yourself.

SPEAKER_04 58:30

That's what we do in. We do in 100% in in a in a laundry basket. I have soil that I acquired from the neighbour's gardens.

Corie 58:40

Why not? That's his wife, you know.

SPEAKER_04 58:42

Yeah, make it look real legit.

Corie 58:45

Well, good, we could book the date one time for when they started. So coming out of the school TTH, you had to leave there to take care of mommy. Yes. At that point, you're refocusing or looking at going back on the stage, or what are you thinking at that point?

SPEAKER_04 58:57

No, so your future. I did the A-levels, uh, I went into A levels. Yeah, and uh, when I uh finished or when I was close to finishing A-levels, I needed to get a job because my mom was no longer working fully. I she was working like most of her day, but not all of it. So I needed to get a job, and I decided I wanted to do journalism, I want to be a reporter. That's a real interesting story. That was a bullface story, bold-face maneuver. I was nine, 18, 19 years old. And uh back then, Express House, Dong Tong Independence Square didn't have as much security as it has now. So don't try this, folks. Don't try this. I just walk in. I walk in and I use the one percent adjacent luck to bamboozle security and tell them I'm here to HR. Do you have an appointment? Yes. Okay, she's up on the third floor. Went up to the third floor, and uh they were conducting interviews at the time. And the secretary asked me, uh, what is my name? And am I here for an interview? I said, Yeah, I gave her my name, and I said, Yes, I'm here for an interview. And she said, Well, I'm not seeing you on the list. I said, Oh, that must be some sort of an error, but I'm here for the interview. Uh and I ended up getting an interview with Cassandra Patrovani, who was the HR person at the time. And uh, I told her, I am still in school, but I used to write for the Catholic News for Vision magazine. It's true, I mean, true. I used to write from Vision. So I used to write for the Catholic News, and I'm interested in writing for the newspaper. Can I get a job? And she said, give us some samples of your work and we'll consider. So I went back home, did some work, cut some articles from Vision, sent it in, and uh, I got a freelance job where I was doing articles, just one off here and there. And I worked in their marketing department as well with the supplements division doing advertorials, writing about who's selling tiles and who's selling whatever.

Corie 1:01:02

But you know, yeah, boy.

Newsroom Mentors, Awards, And Advocacy

SPEAKER_04 1:01:06

A HD for the win. Oh, with you. Uh but from doing the advertori and stuff eventually, and opening, um, they had an opening for a July-August internship program that was the same year with Golder Lee and I are from the same year that started in Express in one Caribbean media. But Golda went up to news and I went into newsroom in in Express in print. And uh, I worked with names that no longer people, young people mightn't be familiar with. But for me back then, I was working with Keith Smith and Deborah John and Angela Martin Hines, and these these people who who really shaped me as a writer. Because I think even back then, coming out of school, you know, what what they teach you in school and how to write your little reports and stuff is not the same. When you're reaching to our newsroom, I'm writing just my secondary school style. And yeah, until one day, that one day, when I heard Keith Smith from yeah, that deep booming voice from in his office, what shit is this Ryogis? And I was like, ah, this is familiar. We're going to the principal's office here to see what I did. Yeah, pretty, yeah, kid, kid Lemon know one time that there's not it, there's not the standard. Yeah, and uh between him and Angela and Deborah, they kept at me. Um, they really gave me opportunities, they helped me to shape how I wrote, and that's where eventually it led to awards. Navy 11 awards for journalism. What were some of the awards? Um, I would have gotten the very first uh Lumen award from the Media Association of Torontobago and Catholic News as well for writing on children's rights. I have uh an award, I've like the majority of them are from the Pan American Health Organization. So PAHO Awards, PAHO Awards, United Nations Awards, and I got a Food and Agriculture Organization award for my work on uh food security in the Caribbean, and that award took me to Rome. So I was on uh I did a trip to Rome, to the FAW building in Rome to learn about food security and like just how our coast works and with the fishes and all the different things that affect the Caribbean region in terms of food security in our region, and a lot of it was for children's rights, um, women's rights, reproductive health rights.

Corie 1:03:48

I start to understand your TikTok a little bit. Yeah, that general nature of the thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:52

It never left. It never left. I've always been behind issues and uh behind a desire for change, for a better society for women and for children and for people like myself who are neurodivergent.

Corie 1:04:08

I witch you, I witch you, I wish you. My curiousity kill me, no, how you get this thing with the Catholic news? How would I end up how you get through that?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:14

Because I'm from a very staunch Catholic family, which it may not look like that based on what it has been talking about. And I know I know after that.

Corie 1:04:23

It's on the edge.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:24

Yeah, you know, because it's only after I pop my video with me with my my rose there shaking and dancing and shaking my tutels on the TikTok that somebody tagged me in in um the Archbishop speech, and I was like, bruh, he can't just be sitting down there watching. I say real geese.

Corie 1:04:40

Let me know the Westy Ghost Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:44

No, this this is um my family's uh Catholic, staunch Catholic family, and uh that's the upbringing. So back then, when I was still in church and still going actively to Catholic church, I would have been writing for Catholic news. God is because that was the vantage point that I had, and that was a safe space for me at the time. I always wanted to write, and uh I think it was a safer bet because my mom was fine with that, she wasn't so fine with my other outlets for writing because like at one point I had you remember Showtime, yes, yeah. I used to have my name in the pen pal section and thing because I love writing people. Yeah, I used to write people all over the world. I always had pen pals all over the world, and then I put my name in that, and I had a very unique pen pal experience where I got this yellow letter in the mail, no envelope, just stapled in the middle, and I was there like ready to write back my response. And my mother said, give me that. Because it was some somebody who was in the prison system that way. Um I think they have time to write. Yeah, yeah, they had time to write, and they would have gotten a response from me too. Because I I wanted to know why they were in, and they would have been out by now. I mean, we could have been friends when local prisons is local prison, local golden grove. It was golden grove. I was about 14 years old. Um God for mommy. Yeah, boy. She caught that one. She caught that.

Corie 1:06:12

Okay, that's social media before it was social media, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:06:16

Yeah, that was it. That was it. That was it with the life. But I used to be writing my letters to everybody all over the world, just writing.

Corie 1:06:22

Interesting, interesting, interesting. So, what what stage was Mediterranean was born? Well long after then?

Reinvention: Loss, Bush House, And Open Mics

SPEAKER_04 1:06:29

Yeah, long after. Semiditrini was born in the darkest time of my life, though. That was in uh 2017. That was the year my mom passed. Uh, around that year, I was going through hell in a handbasket. I'd lost my job. My mom was terminally ill. No, I was a co at that time I was a corporate communications officer, the ministry of energy. Yeah, but no, not really writing. Corporate communications is is writing, yes, but also event planning and dealing with uh a lot of of corporate corporate and government business. But um they will it was a contract, and contract came to an end and they weren't renewing, and I was like, ah, what am I gonna do here? And I had my two sons, and uh, I was dealing with a situation I don't want to get too deep in it. Sure, sure, but uh relationship ended, lost my apartment, couldn't afford it. My mom was terminally ill and she passed away, and uh I was just on my lowest, I had no money, nothing. I had lost everything, rock bottom, and that's how I ended up going back to Grandcouver, which is where my family was, and taking up that little cocoa hut in the middle of the bush. And uh, I needed an outlet because for many years I had stopped doing anything creative, I had been away from the stage for years. I had only been doing the corporate communications and doing oh the before corporate communications, I was a realtor, a real estate agent for a few years. Yeah, all over all over the inflation. So keep on journalists, real estate agent, all over, all over. Um, but at that point in time, I was just like, all right, um, I'm sending out applications for jobs and I'm not getting through with anything at all. And I'm feeling at that time, I was feeling suicidal, uh, had I suicidal ideation. But I said, no, let me find something to put this energy into. And I started going out and doing open mics. Um, they had they didn't have comedy open mics, they had broad open mics back then, so they had like um true talk no lie. Oh, I see. Yeah, true talk no lie, and and um there was one down south with uh a girl named Tracy um dropped the mic. But these were broad open mics, it could be poets, it could be spoken. Yeah, and it was weird because sometimes you're trying to test some some level 10 tier top tier premium punky jokes right after somebody now dropped a little gospel song. And I was very uncomfortable environment to test company, but we used to have to do it. A lot of us we started like that juniorly, and they spoke about you when they came in there. So yeah, we all were more or less there in those spaces testing our material, trying to figure ourselves out and going through our different things, and um it was a different time for me because I I same thing we would talk about, I swept a lot under the rug, so nobody really knew that I was catching my ass and broken and struggling and feeling suicidal because I was out there telling jokes and that I was really grieving and trying to figure myself out and dealing with uncomfortable private life situations that were very traumatic and still lent to a lot of trauma for a few years after. This year is actually the very first time where I feel like my voice is now my own more than ever before. Because in the past with comedy, I had to deal with up to last year and all. When you're dealing with sponsors and corporate being on board with your project, you have to toe the line. You have to, you can't say certain things because you don't want the brand to say, Well, I don't want that associated with my brand. But this show, I don't have any um major corporate involvement or whatever corporate involvement they are comfortable with what I am doing in notes adult comedy. Yes, they know that I will say what I want to say, and I feel like it is important as a comedian to be at this point where I'm at right now because you never hear about Dave Chappelle and Kevin Hart and them having to sit down and say, Boy, I don't want to say the F-word because the sponsors would I would lose sponsorship. Or you never hear Tiffany Hardish and them saying, Well, I'm uncomfortable talking about my punkie because I can't talk about nothing sexual because then they will think I am what is the word that they use? Filthy, filthy, uh, and it's so strange that in a society where we do, yeah, where we have this whole stink and dotty party. Stink and stink and dotty, and I will go on social media and see what a girl had for breakfast, just everything, everything out there, and then afterwards the same brands that will have the girl as a promo girl with all she business outside out there will say, Oh, yeah, we don't want to be on board with this particular beginning to me.

Corie 1:11:44

Somehow, as a society, we somehow okay with doing things, but you see, when you say it, yeah, it's an odd thing, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:51

You can't say that it's show the cat, don't say it, don't say you're going and show your cat, yeah.

Corie 1:12:01

Maybe especially so as a woman, you know, maybe especially so as a woman, which is something I want to get to.

Creative Freedom vs Sponsorship Constraints

SPEAKER_04 1:12:06

Yeah, there's a big gender, there's a big gender difference in how it's dealt with because men can talk about the cocoa hold it.

Corie 1:12:12

Yeah, well, you said it's with the rules, huh? You said it's about the same thing with the rules.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:15

Unbudded. People be unbuttered. A man can talk about his cocoa, he could talk about sex, yeah, yeah, yeah. He could talk about it. And all he's talking about. Yeah, how big it is, how small it is, how long he lasted. Then we could crack all kinds of jokes about sex. But but from the time that um a woman starts to speak up about anything sexual, the immediately there's this extreme discomfort. Oh, she's very vulgar and crass. I don't like her. I don't want to have her on board with any of my business.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:49

Yeah, gotta represent them.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:51

It's weird because I know that there have been instances where I saw, I ain't gonna call the brand's name, but there's I saw a specific brand that literally the brand manager told me that the reason why they couldn't deal with what with my show was because they're their family brand. And then they spun around and had an ad with another content creator on social media who just the week prior had done videos where he was doing something that was um sexual in nature, and there were some some little sexual innuendos and jokes that were tucked in. Yeah, you're observing these things you see in life. Oh, that's interesting. Well, I'll make note of how family friendly this is. Actually, I think I was petty about it. I went underneath their I went underneath their post and I put the link.

Corie 1:13:40

Fellows.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:41

And I was like, this is this is a very good family friendly family-friendly content, man. Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, um I'm trying to be less petty though. Are you? No. Okay, no, okay.

Corie 1:13:52

I want to come back to that with women in comedy, but I feel like again, my curiosity, where did stand-up start? Because for you to go, he says a real low moment in your life. You went into stand-up. You were doing stand-up before, or you only chose that then.

Gender Double Standards In Comedy And Brands

SPEAKER_04 1:14:05

Huh. So I have a very funny uh story with that one. 1997, I wrote something in one of my books where I want to try stand-up comedy because back then my mom she had uh depression issues herself, and the only thing that would make her laugh was comedy. So I used to lie down on the couch and watch comedy specials with her. So we would watch uh Eddie Murphy Raw was one of the first shows that I ever watched. And I was a teenager, a young teenager, but it made my mom cackle and howl. And hearing her laugh was so beautiful to me. It was like, oh, I need to hear this more. So I made a note back then that I want to try stand-up comedy, but it was never something that materialized. And then 2002, I wrote a post and I have it archived there on Facebook. I want to try stand-up comedy. Zero likes, nobody, nothing. Silence hand cricket, sir. And to go from 2002 to 2017, when I uh first uh touched the mic, it was always in the back of my mind to try it. Because really and truly, stand-up comedy is storytelling, it's just a different type of storytelling. It's a storytelling that takes form where you create the stories in a way that make people laugh. But it's not that far a stretch from seven-year-old Rhea Simono Ghis was doing storytelling on a stage to making up a whole essay. Making up whole essays, just just being a general pest. But but it it's something that it kind of just ties into who I am, and uh it stayed with me. Now, do I want to stay with it forever? I'm not sure. Really? No, because I have been doing this, I call it the ADHD shuffle, where of late uh I know that I'm doing it, I know I've succeeded to some extent with it, and it's like, ah, been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, what's next? So I'm at that what's next, and I'm feeling it very strongly on the what's next zone. So I don't know if, like I said, I might end up doing my podcast with my in my lingerie for my future husband, or I might go not content creation, but I might I want to sing, so I might start doing some songs. I've been chucking this idea for a while and saying, I want to sing, I want to put out music, not necessarily soaker, but but I want to do something. I think parang so perhaps might be something that's a good fit for me. If not parang soca, then just something that's love, a love song. So I'm I'm writing a love song right now, and I will see how it goes. Okay, I have good inspiration. My whole man, yeah. Look at that. Look at that man making me write song in the night, you know.

Corie 1:17:03

Big Valentine's, you know, it can't go room.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:05

Yeah, boy, yeah. You know, things good when you see Abba Man here. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Corie 1:17:11

That's how you're supposed to have them, David. That's how to have them. Had him writing song. I just want to get into the part of the room and then come at the end. I can go there and we we will finish. I suppose finish on time, Kyle. I don't ever go late. I don't ever run on time. Yeah, any touchdown. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll get done. We'll get done. Yeah, so uh that's interesting to hear. See, because even in talking to you, and a lot of this, just to be clear to people who listening, is stuff I find notice in real time. Your journey is from business to literature to writing. But it's you know what's funny? Like when you talk about it, it feels like it was all put together, and and you you're making all of it work for you now.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:52

Not really, I just live, I just out there living, but yeah, you had it. It is work itself out. Yeah, because even studying business now, doing your own shows, feeling like a plan.

Corie 1:18:07

From now on, you had to look back at and say all ordained, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 1:18:12

Israel Vikey bike behavior, which means you're either catch up and be like, all right, I'm having a short Queen's Hall next year, and it's just materialized. I think it's it's an action, like it's a thought. You I write it and then I work towards it.

Corie 1:18:26

Gotcha. Um just to sit back again. Uh forgive me, but when you leave the journalism, at that point in time you're feeling this way, like you did it for enough time and you want to do something else, or what cause you to go away from that?

SPEAKER_04 1:18:37

I make children, and it was real hard to and I made them back to back, so I had a toddler and a newborn. I went to work a day, and um, I went to work a day, and I was still acting, and I just I had two big circular dots of milk on my chest, and I was like, this isn't it, this isn't it real until the next, yeah. You had to figure something else out because you can't be there interviewing Dr. Kid Rowley, and you have two big circular nip. But I actually have a picture of that by the way, of me there interviewing Dr. Kid Rowley, and he wouldn't have even known, but I because I had my hand here covering a wet spot from lactation.

Corie 1:19:25

You're making it happen, you're making it happen.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:27

Negative. That was a no. We didn't go into that again.

Corie 1:19:30

So you always make it a point, and it's something we spoke about almost the first time you spoke well. You're in a very, very male-dominated space. Even when Junili brought you up here, he was talking about those performing in bars and stuff and open mics. And you were the only woman's name that was called. You were talking about plenty of people who were in the bars, but then you hear Simi in the mix. How are you navigating them spaces as a woman?

Lone Wolf In A Boys’ Club

SPEAKER_04 1:19:52

Painfully, boy. Painfully, because Rel penis backstage. With penis comes ego, and uh I have had misunderstandings, I think, with some of some of the other male comedians because where they are at, they they bond, they bond them brethren, and um they will have they will go and lime after show. I don't really lime. I come and perform, I do what I had to do, and I go. So, and I how I speak to people in most zones, I I'm I explain I'm I'm autistic ADHD. So I'm very plain spoken in how I say things and not always friendly. I will just say what I had to say and dip. So it doesn't make for that kind of I want to be all a friend. Um, let's bless be buddies, and then the difference between me and a lot of them fellas is, and I've noticed it, they have supports that I don't have. So with Junior Lee, he says, see him with his mom. He's his mom is always back there with him, and he has a crew of friends that he went to school with, he has a team around him. Um, same thing, Rodie. Rodi's mom was managing him for a very long time. I think she still does. Rodi's mom's always there, he has his wife and he has supports around him. And uh, when I go to their shows, you see these fellas have wives, moms, family, friends, supports. And for the for the longest while I've just been a lone wolf. My shows when you come backstage, is me. Yeah, me, I'm a stage manager and whoever dealing with the technical stuff. So we don't really have that kind of camaraderie and friendship that goes. There is a love and there is a kind of a family that happens with comedy, in that I think there's a respect that I've earned because of how long I've been there backstage with them. They know me, they know who I'm about. But to say that, you know, we have I come in by them to eat Sunday lunch and thing, nah, no, no, no, them coming by me and we breezing together. I think that only happened in the last year with one comedian, Andrew Johnson, shout him out. He's really newer on the scene, but we just clicked. And I call him a work husband because we we really do share ideas and and bounce ideas off of each other. And it's the first time that I've ever met anyone in the comedy space that I feel comfortable to just relax around because there's less of an ego. I don't feel like you're trying to compete with me, which I'm not trying to compete with anyone, like I can't. They're in everybody's in their own lane. But I do feel at times where it feels like they're trying to compete with me. It's weird.

Corie 1:22:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember you're talking about setting your date for your show, which immediately gives me anxiety when I even hear somebody say that. I know what that feels like. Yeah. And then you don't know if other people have any shows. So the comedy world is one where it's because I see the Fed world being kind of well now. And it seems to me like Fet Promoters is work some things out. Some of our promoters associations, yeah, yeah. So you go this weekend, you're gonna not like any comedy world?

SPEAKER_04 1:22:52

Nah, we don't really have that kind of uh rapport. I actually I would have had a conversation with some of these guys about two or three years ago because this happened, where I was doing my shirt Queen's Hall, and the cast that I had on that show was um, I had about four or five guys and me doing this show, and nobody told me anything. I wake up a morning, I see a flyer, and is the same cast, but minus me, and is about a week before me, and my ticket is 250, and their ticket is 150.

Corie 1:23:23

Oh, nice.

Show Dates, Competition, And Staying Your Course

SPEAKER_04 1:23:24

And all of them, all five of them pushing that show on their social media, and mine just is me alone to push for me. So, what I have found in those kind of spaces where I felt discomfort, I am not the kind of person to take discomfort quietly. I immediately rerouted my discomfort and went directly to source and said, Hey, what is that one? Who is that one? All the day is all about. Okay, well, here what? In future, maybe we could have a conversation before, because then it would have helped me to know how to book and who to that I could so that I could present a different kind of cast so that we are not selling the same show minus me. Because now, what's the difference? Yeah, I'm now selling people something more expensive, and the only difference is me. Um, but that's fine because the show's still sold. Okay, and one of the things that that experience taught me is you really had to stay in your own lane and put on blinders to what are people doing because they could come now and put a show the day before mine and sell it for$20. If I have a show, I have a show. I have to sell it, and who's showing up? They're showing up for me. Yeah, and they're not really showing up because this one day and that one day. The majority of the people who show up to my shows, they really are from for my shows, and I appreciate that. I really do. This year, I really wanted to do uh a little bit different. I had one person in mind on, and this was an idea toy with for a year and change. Yeah, Lady Lava looking at you. That's why my show is called Stand Up and a Down. I see up and a door in back and forth conversation with Lady Lava management. She was supposed to perform at the show. So the show's name was for Lady Lava being the guest performance musical guest, because it was the first time I was doing steam comedy where we talking, the talk, we go in going through all rudeness, all vice, all slackness. We're doing it, but we put some sense in the slackness, did my flyers, did my tickets, have my little lava so my little semi-so, and then I get our message from her manager. Hey, I I make a mistake here with this date, you know. She, yeah, she has a gig in the states. I can't I can't pay her in the US now. I ain't reached them kind of levels. Again, they would be there. We and her, we ain't her dad. So everything gets thrown out, and I just had to recalibrate and adjust. True entrepreneurship show date is there, and yet with Queens all on these places, you just have to book your date sometimes a year in advance.

Corie 1:25:58

You see what everybody else is. This is the part that people do see and understand. Yeah, get David David know the song, David. No the up and a dog here because I'm doing it. So you could he could come and perform it.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:07

Who I could call for up and a dog.

Corie 1:26:12

But listen, affordable and postcan and po, yeah. But there's some parts of this that I get I would love to get into.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:20

Like the other women and tech, but we could or the other women.

Corie 1:26:24

I asked my woman in comedy, you take it wherever you want to take it.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:27

No, no, I thought you I thought you was you were gonna ask about the other women in comedy. They're phenomenal. I love them, they're great. That's all I have to say.

Corie 1:26:35

That's which ones, all of them.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:38

Everybody, every woman who has ever tried this. God bless her, God bless her, and uh may she have long, long life and strength. Because this is not an industry for the faint of heart, and it definitely is not an easy industry for women, and that's why they don't have as many of us out there. It's hard.

Corie 1:26:55

So they're not supposed to live in good.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:57

No, no, we good, we good, we good, we good. Everybody in their own lane doing their own thing, man. We don't do we don't we don't operate like the fellas. I know that. You see where you're seeing like all them fellas every time you see a full penis clip, it's just sausage party galor. You just see all them men congregating and hey, let we have a show, and you just see we having a show, it's all the time.

Corie 1:27:18

Yeah, maybe I don't see that too much with the room. Not that we've seen not yet.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:23

We will get there eventually. We have to get more women in the industry, and then we'll build up from there as well.

Corie 1:27:28

Well, listen, congratulations, number one, for everything that you've done. We learned a lot here today. It happened fast enough. I'll come back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I try my best. It happened fast, it was going in all different directions. But I appreciate it. It was well worth the way to be able to talk to you.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:41

Thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it, and I do look forward to seeing it as well because I am a fan. I have loved watching how you handle yourself, how you handle these interviews, and uh the way that you do it with so much diplomacy and tact, you know, because sometimes as we watch the towers, we like, I just want to tell people.

Plans Ahead: Music, Love Songs, And Next Acts

Corie 1:28:02

Well you see the answer, so I know, right? Yeah, and the trick says we came here since we are fan of the show, right? You use the Crazy Hopkinson approach to the show where they pour a very big drink before we start, right? And act like they're gonna drink and make me pour a big drink and make my speech get complicated, and then they don't drink one damn thing. But congrats, thanks again. And don't try to drink it. No, all right. Well, we should start over. No, David. No, take a drink. No, we'll final work on right over. Done. Empty. Thanks very much, man. This was a pleasure. Thank you very much. And we launched the soaker parang here.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:34

Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. If it if it is this soaker parang or if it is a love song, which could be, we never know.

Corie 1:28:41

Yeah, no, the issues that I feel by the time you come back, you will change your mind again.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:44

But we have to or change your man, but we're hoping that was not so, right? We're hoping this one's thick. We opened this one's thick.

Corie 1:28:52

We hope so too. Thanks very much. No problem.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:54

Thank you very much.